


You Made a Slow Disaster Out of Me

by thereweregiants



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Writer AU, a mcreyes mallomar if you will, mostly fluff with a crunchy angst coating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:01:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16445954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereweregiants/pseuds/thereweregiants
Summary: Jesse McCree has done well in the decade since he's left the military - under a pseudonym he's an accomplished travel writer for magazines, and his travelogue/memoirs are selling great. Sure he hasn't had a relationship in years, but it's fine - he has friends and his adventures and his writing...which often includes references to a former partner that he refuses to name.A letter arrives from a fan, and it turns out his past might not be as over with as he thought it was.





	You Made a Slow Disaster Out of Me

**Author's Note:**

> sick to death of canon compliance so AU time it is  
> found a note in my scrap folder that said 'do something with Joel Morricone' and here we are
> 
>  
> 
> title to the fic and all of McCree's books from The National's [You Were a Kindness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz8Gi0Dxrkw) because my characters need as pretentious titles for their works as I do.  
> all books not by OW people are actual books and usually pretty good. except for all those crab pulp horror ones  
> soundtrack was mostly Fever Ray's eponymous album

_I’m glad that my room has windows, because it means I can watch him in the moonlight. He has that hair-trigger awareness of where everything is in any given space and what’s happening around him - we all were trained that way, but he’s better (or worse, perhaps) than the rest of us. If I move, even just to roll over in sleep, he knows it. But with the moonlight shining down I can silently look at his face and his body and watch him in the closest thing he gets to relaxation. Look at his shattered mirror skin and wish I could wipe the scars away, smooth away all of the past that made him - made us - into this._ \- Joel Morricone,  To Be a Confident Wreck, p 102

 

“Jesse.”

“ _Jesse_.”

A paperclip hits him in the forehead. “Ow.”

“If you paid attention the first time I called your name, this wouldn’t be a problem.” Sombra is frowning down at him from where she’s half-perched on his desk. Jesse blinks. The room is darker than he'd think it would be. He glances at the clock and winces. Somehow more time than he expected went by while he was in his own head, and Sombra should have left an hour ago.

“Sorry, Som. Lost track of things.”

“It’s fine. As long as you put some of those things down on paper.” She cranes her neck to try and look Jesse in the face, who is definitely not avoiding her gaze right now. “Right, Jesse? You actually spent some of the six hours since lunch doing something like, oh, let’s see, the writing that lets you and more importantly me put food on the table?”

Sombra is half a foot shorter and most of a hundred pounds lighter than Jesse, but he keeps her around because she is absolutely willing to verbally - and if needed, physically - browbeat him into getting done what he needs to. He’d been reluctant to get an assistant at first, but his editor, Ana, had insisted once he started juggling so many projects. Sombra had saved him enough times from dropping important assignments that he stopped arguing against needing her years ago.

“I think I laid some stuff out. I’ll get ‘em down in outline form before I leave, I promise.”

“Does that stuff to do with the article on Chichén Itzá, which is due in two days, in case you had forgotten, or with your next... _thing_?” She says the last word like licking a lemon wedge.

“Those _things_ of mine are what pay most of the bills and you know it. And yes, it was for the thing.” At Sombra’s sigh, he puts up a hand. “I just have to find a good few ending paragraphs for the Chichén Itzá piece and it’s done. Stop looking at me like that.”

“Fine, fine. I’m out for the night. Go home, eat some real food, please.” With a swirl of purple hair and a black coat, Sombra is gone.

He stretches, feeling his elbows then wrists crack. Jesse’s lived through war, been through battlefields on every continent, but it’s the toll of sitting in office chairs for hours at a stretch that has taken the most out of his body over the years. He pulls the document on the Mayan ruins up, and tries to figure out how to end the piece. Writing a piece itself is never hard, and starting it is fairly simple. Endings, however. Endings always elude him.

Jesse McCree makes his living two ways. Both could be seen as the ideal way of existence, the perfect jobs, at least according to baby journalists and starry-eyed college lit majors. Half of his year or more, he travels. He goes all over the world, to cities and and to unincorporated territories, to famous ruins crawling with tourists and to bumps in the ground that you could only tell once held a civilization if you get a thousand feet in the air and look for faint patterns. He then writes about it, sometimes for specific assignments like the current Chichén Itzá article, and sometimes as a general article that he’ll shop around until it gets snapped up. He’s well known enough in the field at this point that he doesn’t have to try hard for his pieces to get bought.

Then, he has his other writing. His “things”, according to Sombra. When he first began traveling, he started keeping a loose journal on the side. It was a casual, first person blog - rambling about the research he was doing for his articles, combined with musings on the books he was reading for work and pleasure plus whatever else came into his head. Often this was thoughts about his previous military service and how odd it was to travel around and not kill people. Sometimes his personal life - or lack thereof - would sneak in as well. He stuck it all in a nameless blog that he didn’t tell anyone about, but on a whim he signed his posts with the same pen name as his travel articles. Someone somewhere made the connection and found it, and the site exploded overnight. He ended up with a publisher and a book deal before he really knew what was happening, and now he’s on his fourth odd travelogue-memoir-rambling book. He still doesn’t know why people want to read what amounts to a diary, but they sell very well, well enough that he doesn’t complain. Sombra dislikes them because he turns into a grumpy mess for the months it takes to edit.

Jesse cracks his neck and bends back over his computer to write about the evils and benefits of tourism.

 

\--

 _There’s a tiny crab, hanging off of the hair on my left leg. I don’t like wearing shorts, too many looks due to too many scars, but it’s unbearably hot here in Vanuatu. This little thing is maybe the size of my thumbnail, but he’s decided that Mount Leg is the hill he’s going to climb today. I’ve been reading a book about crabs,_ _Walking Sideways_ _by Judith Weis. It sounds so dull on the surface, but just like those Kurlansky books about salt or cod, it’s a narrow yet fascinatingly deep look at something I’ve never really considered before. I had to balance this out by reading a series of pulp horror books on crabs by Guy N Smith (somehow I doubt that’s his real name). The titles and cover art are worth it alone:_ _Night of the Crabs_ _,_ _Killer Crabs_ _,_ _Killer Crabs: The Return_ _. My personal favorite is_ _Crabs: The Human Sacrifice_ _. This little trooper who’s now made it to my knee isn’t going to kill me anytime soon, I don’t think, but I’ll set him down so he can find another mountain to conquer._ \- Joel Morricone,  There’s a Radiant Darkness Upon Us  , p 47

“You have to wear some proper clothing.”

“All my clothing is proper, Ana.”

She looks him up and down. It should feel half as judgemental as a normal glance, given she has just the one eye, but somehow it feels even worse. “You look like an extra from some western television show. A badly made one.” Jesse rolls his eyes, but Ana keeps going. “Moira will take you out shopping.”

“Please, no. I know you think she’s the best assistant ever, but that woman is frightenin'.” Jesse feared Ana because he knew how terrifyingly competent she was. Jesse feared Moira because she was just terrifying.

“This meet-and-greet is going to set up your next book, Jesse. It’s business. You need to look decent, you know you’ll have your picture taken and it’ll be in their magazines.”

“If I get Genji to take me out, can I charge it as a business expense?”

“As long as you avoid any strip clubs.”

“That was _one time_ , Ana.”

“One time too many. Make sure the pants you get aren’t tear away.”

Jesse flaps a hand at her in annoyance, already turning around and pulling Genji’s number up. He picks up after just a few rings. “McCree.”

“Genji, my favorite person.”

“Dare I ask what you want?”

“You’ll like this one. I have some kinda fancy party that Ana’s forcin’ me to go to.”

“Please tell me I get to turn you into a real boy.”

“Do well enough and maybe I can get you an invite, too. Free open bar.”

“I knew I kept you around for a reason. Tonight?”

“Sure, I’ll stop by your place at six, we can grab dinner on the way.”

A few hours later, Jesse and Genji are picking at the remains of a steak dinner. Genji watches as Jesse chases around a bit of parmesan with the end of a green bean.

“So this party is for...what, again?”

“It’s the first of a bunch of events for the new book, though it’s not focused on me. Everyone under my publisher with a book comin’ out in the second half of next year gets together, gladhands with the various editors and bigwigs and such. It’s not torture, but not particularly enjoyable. You have to play nice for the whole night, and deal with the other authors.”

“Are they so bad?”

Jesse shrugs. “Not much for me, I’m enough of an odd little niche that I don’t have anyone to really compete against. Because the publisher’s so big, though, they have enough authors that I’m sure some fur will fly. Last year two mystery writers who both happened to have books involvin' boarding schools nearly had a fistfight.”

Genji snickers, prosthetic hand clinking softly against his glass as he picks it up. Jesse and Genji go way back, and he’s one of the few people to know Jesse during what he privately thinks of as Before and After. Before was the military - first the army, then a special covert black ops unit that travelled the world and did the type of things you only saw in spy movies. He and Genji were on the same team and they became fast friends. Then the covert unit was eliminated in some weird interdepartmental drama that was somehow kept out of the headlines, and Jesse found himself with an unusual set of skills and no job. That was when After happened: the travel, the writing. Genji ended up in the same home city - Los Angeles - as Jesse, working for a private security company.

“How is the book coming, anyways?”

“It’s...fine. It’s not like any of them have a real plot or anything, but usually there’s somethin' of a theme. I start with a giant amount of writing, and cut out a couple hundred pages until I get somethin' coherent out of it. That’s the stage I’m at now.”

“Anything for the hausfraus, eh?”

Jesse frowns in semi-annoyance. He didn’t start writing for any intended audience - just himself. For better or worse, though, his books are incredibly popular with young- and especially middle-aged women. It’s some combination of the world-weary former military man, the travel parts where he writes about places they’ve barely heard of let alone seen, and...well. Him. His fans used a capital letter, always: ‘Him’.

Genji looks at him steadily. Jesse knows what’s coming.

“Any plans to contact him one of these days?”

“Not any since the last time you asked.”

“I could always ask Fareeha…”

“No, Genji.” In an odd small-world coincidence, Genji’s boss is Ana’s daughter. Both Amaris had been military as well, though Fareeha had been in Canada while Ana had been in Egypt. Fareeha has a rather disturbing number of military and civilian contacts spread all over the world.

“You might get over him if you tried dating someone new.”

“Because I have the time for that, travelin’ half the time and on deadline the rest.”

“You know you could make the time if you wanted.”

Jesse stares morosely into his drink. Although his books are more stream of consciousness than anything, a rambling journey through what he’s doing and thinking at any one time, there are recurring people and places. Genji’s in there a decent amount as he was Jesse’s partner during much of his military time, though he’s limited to an initial. The other character that pops up Jesse never refers to by any kind of name at all, just uses male pronouns, hence the ‘Him’ from his fans. He was Jesse’s… _'ex'_ doesn’t quite cover everything that they were, but it’s close enough. He had been Jesse’s commander, his lover, his friend. When Jesse had started writing it was just for himself, and so he used rather more risque detail than about their relationship than he would have if he knew there’d be an audience . His readers eat up what they see as a forbidden relationship that broke Joel Morricone’s heart, that he never recovered from even a decade on. It’s not exactly an inaccurate reading, much as Jesse denies it.

Jesse puts his credit card back in his wallet, pushes his chair back. “Don’t we have some shoppin’ to do?”

“Nice segue, McCree.”

“I try.”

 

\--

 _“A rose-red city half as old as time” is how the poem goes. It does look that way now as I stand again in front of the Siq, that gorgeous split in the earth that leads to Petra. It resembles the canyons near where I grew up as a child, though so much...more, in every way. The last time I was here, I didn’t get to see it like this, all lit up from the sun bouncing off of the rich sandstone. We were on a night mission, I barely even remember what for at this point. I do remember him pulling his glove off and running his hand over some carvings at the city entrance, a quiet moment before the blood and death started. He said something about how long people had lived here, but I couldn’t stop looking at his fingers moving over the smooth stone._ \- Joel Morricone,  I Was Careful but Nothing is Harmless , p 324

Jesse escapes from the clutch of editors with shellacked hairpieces that shine under the lights and makes his way to the edge of the room, looking for Genji. He’s feeling uncomfortable in his suit - undeniably well-fitting, Genji knows how to make a man look good, but far tighter than anything Jesse is comfortable in. He got to keep his belt buckle, at least.

He finally spots Genji in a corner, talking to a man and a woman who thankfully look more like authors than publishing industry minions. He walks over just in time to hear “...and then he surfaces from this pool of actual sewage, still in his now completely ruined tuxedo, and holds up this dripping, dead parakeet saying ‘Look, I got ‘im!’”

Jesse rolls his eyes as he joins their small circle. “That bird had a computer chip hidden away in its stomach, and it was important we got it by any means necessary.” He elbows Genji as he gives a smile to the two new people. “Joel Morricone, don’t listen to anythin' this guy says about me.”

The man, young with a head full of dreadlocks, wide eyes and a wider smile, reaches a hand out to shake. “Lúcio Correia dos Santos. Welcome to our little non-fiction corner.” Jesse shakes his hand slowly, brain working.

“Your name is familiar, somehow. What have you published?”

Lúcio grins, seemingly lighting up their corner of the room with its power. “Nothing, yet. In real life I’m a DJ, with some social activism on the side. I knew some people that knew some people that work for Overwatch Publications though, and Ms Amari came to me asking if I’d like to write something on hard light tech, because I’ve done so much with its development. I’m not saying it’s a new Anarchist’s Cookbook for how to alter existing tech for your own purposes, but…”

Jesse grins back. “I like you. You’re either gonna end up arrested or sell a million copies. Maybe both.”

Lúcio shrugs. “I have enough money, I can deal with lawsuits. This is about bringing technology down to the people, like when hiphop exploded after DJ equipment was looted during the 1977 NY blackout. Sometimes people just have to be given a chance.”

Genji starts to ask Lúcio some questions about his book, and Jesse can see the glint in his eyes that says his interest isn’t purely academic. He internally smiles, and turns to the woman beside him. “And what brings you here tonight?”

She’s tiny, short and pleasantly round with enormous eyes that dominate her small face. They crinkle up as she smiles and shakes Jesse’s hand. “Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou, please call me Mei.”

“Oh, I know your name, you wrote that book on massive ice storms and how they’re getting worse with climate change! I read it maybe eight months back while I was huddled up on a glacier in Alaska. Real interestin’ stuff.”

Mei’s eyes somehow get even larger. “You read that? It feels like no one reads my books. People are ignoring climate change as it is, so put that in what everyone sees as a dying form of media and it really becomes invisible.”

Jesse sighs. “You’re tellin’ me. Sometimes I wonder why I bother with all of this,” he waves a hand at the party and the crowds, “And think I should have just kept to my blog. Not worth the effort.”

Mei’s cheeks pink up a bit. “It’s worth it, though. I admit I’ve read all of your books, they’ve come with me to several research sites now. Books don’t lose power, can’t run out of batteries. When you’re stuck in a research station where you can barely run a coffee maker without risking blowing a fuse that keeps life support going, hard copies keep you from losing it.”

“I guess we’re mutual fans of each other, then.”

“If we don’t support reading ourselves, who else will?” Mei cocks her head, looking all the world like a curious cat. “I’m assuming you have another book coming out, then?”

“Yeah, another travelogue memoir thing. Still not sure why they sell as well as they do, but I’d be writing it whether it’d be published or not so I may as well get paid for it.”

“They’re good, is why they sell! The combination of travel with some science and history and literature review and even a bit of romance…” Mei gives a small smile at Jesse’s rolling of eyes. “What, no information on your ever-mysterious beau for a new friend?”

“He’s not my...anythin', not for a long time. No idea where he is, even if he’s alive.” He looks up to see Mei’s eyes getting shiny. “Oh god, I swear it’s not that sad. Please, oh god.”

“I won’t cry, I just get emotional a lot, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s a part of what makes your books so popular, I think - your man isn’t a big part, but he’s always there, this thread running through things and connecting it all. It helps bring it all together. I just always assumed that you two were together still, and you just didn’t want to write about your current relationship.”

“No, I…” he trails off, looking over at Genji who is still deep in conversation with Lúcio. “Don’t spread this around, okay? From one author to another. He was my commander, both mine and Genji’s. When our division was eliminated, all of us peons were scattered to the wind but we were told admin had to stay in place, at least for a while. We were black ops, you didn’t know about us unless we wanted you to know about us. And so I have no idea where he is now - still there, still in the military, still alive...who knows.”

Mei is making a very quiet high pitched noise, her hands pressed to her cheeks. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard! It’s like something out of my romance novels. You _have_ to try and track him down. Make it part of your next book!”

“No, thank you. It would just disrupt whatever life he might have built over the past decade. People change.”

“Maybe he’ll read one of your books and recognize himself.”

Jesse barks a laugh. It’s something that’s occurred to him. “I doubt it. I use a pen name, and it’s not the kind of thing he’d read.”

Mei shrugs. “You never know, you just said yourself that people change.”

Jesse hears his name and looks up to see Ana gesturing at him. “Looks like I’ve got to go. Here,” he impulsively pulls out his phone, pulls up his contacts and hands it to Mei. “Put in your information. We can trade advance copies when our books come out. Or just text for fun, could always use someone to complain about deadlines with.”

“Sure thing, Joel.”

“Jesse.” Mei looks up. “My real name’s Jesse McCree, but don’t spread that around either,” he says with a wink.

“Jesse,” Mei repeats, and they smile give each other a little half-hug. Jesse claps Genji on the shoulder and nods to Lúcio before making his way over to Ana. Time to face the ravening hordes again.

 

\--

 _Last time I was in this jungle I broke my arm when someone cut through the zipline with a machete. G told me not to complain, that I could bitch once I’ve replaced two legs and an arm like him. It took what felt like forever to rendezvous back at camp with him. We didn’t have a medic with us, so once we got back to camp he set my arm himself while G and the rest were out hacking through ferns. I hate places like this - you never feel dry, just constantly sweating. Makes me miss the Southwest. Was dizzy from the painkillers but made him fuck me anyways, we were so sweaty that we just kept sliding against each other, nearly broke the tent and my other arm when he slipped off the stuppid cot. God I miss that. Misss him, wish I had him here instead of sitting with shitty coconut moonshine and sweating alone. Miss his handds. Miss how he had a hundred different frowns fro each thing I did but they werent all bad it was just how hsi face was and some of them were his versionsof smiiles. ugh I cant’ post this im too drunk Ana will kill me_ \- Joel Morricone, unpublished blog post

Jesse is watching Genji as he leans the chair back on two legs. He knows the man has excellent balance, but he’s waiting for the chair-leaning habit to bite him in the ass one day. Today is not that day, however, for when Sombra slams the door open to bustle in Genji leans forwards and not back in startlement.

“Mail time!” she sings out, thumping down a large number of folded papers in front of Jesse. “Looks like the usual assortment, have a couple more people claiming to be your boytoy.”

“Don’t call him that,” Jesse absently says out of habit as he gathers the mail up. Jesse has a bare bones website for his books and no contact form. If they really need an immediate e-mail answer and know where to look, they can contact Ana. Everyone else just sees Joel Morricone’s snailmail address. This deters most people who can’t be bothered to hunt down an envelope or stamp, but Jesse still gets a surprising amount of mail. Compliments, diatribes, suggestions of places to go, and then...them. The people who claim that they are part of his books - saying they are G (which they obviously aren’t, as Genji is sitting next to him right now) or a member of his former team. He knows those are all fake because he is either still in contact with his old team members or they’re dead.

The worst ones are those that claim that they’re him. They’re always junk, but it’s always a little knife prick to the chest every time he gets one.

Genji pushes his chair around to sit next to Jesse as Sombra sits in her usual seat, taking the stack of unsolicited ideas that Jesse can’t look at without possible legal implications. Jesse unfolds the first paper, scans it to see it’s a nice fan letter and sets it in the tray marked ‘answer later’. He always writes back to the nice ones and the at least vaguely respectful critical ones - if they took the time to write then so can he. The assholes who just throw invective go into the shredder.

As he sorts Genji grabs a few letters, reading through. “They...actually like you. What you write is meaningful to them.” He sounds faintly bemused. Genji has known Jesse since he was a twenty year old former gang member with a chip on his shoulder the size of Greenland, and has never quite been able to reconcile the friend he knows with the alternate life of the man he’s become two decades later. He’s supportive to a fault, but sees the whole thing as puzzling. He lived through the same things Jesse did, so he doesn’t really see the entertainment value.

Jesse shrugs. “Y’never know what people find important.” He pulls the next letter off the top of the pile. Plain white copy paper, just four lines. Not even that: barely a salutation, two lines, and initials.

He reads it. He reads it again. He flips the paper over, sees if there’s anything on the back. He sets the paper down because his hands start to shake. He sets his hands down on top of the paper, staring at them until they still. “Sombra?” His voice is less than steady. She looks up, an eyebrow already raised in concern.

“Do you have the envelopes these came in?”

“Yes, in my trash -”

“Get them.”

Sombra doesn’t argue for once, comes back with her small silver can full of paper with Ana in tow behind her. “Genji, Ana is here for your eleven o’clock meeting about the building’s security measures.” Jesse snatches the can from Sombra, dumps the contents out on his desk with little care for how it messes up his careful piles.

Genji grabs the paper off of Jesse’s desk before it can get lost. He reads it in just a few seconds, eyes snapping up to Jesse’s face. “McCree…” Jesse doesn’t pay attention, flicking through envelopes and looking for the right handwriting.

Sombra takes the letter from Genji, reads it over and passes it to Ana. They both look at Jesse and Genji confusedly. “This says...nothing, Jesse. Why are you stressing out?” Ana asks.

“It’s not nothing,” says Genji quietly. “It’s actually Him.” They can hear the capital letter in his voice, and both look at Jesse again, now with interest and worry in their eyes.

It’s all tall spiky dark handwriting on white paper:

_“Joel Morricone,”_

_Your nom de guerre is ridiculous._

_After reading your books, you might owe me some royalties._

_GR_

With a noise of triumph, Jesse finds the envelope. He curses as he sees there’s no return address, just his pseudonym and the address of his publisher, postmark in LA. Sitting back in his seat, he stares at the envelope, willing it to say more than it does. Sombra quietly pushes the rest of the debris back into her trash can, setting it on the floor.

“Well,” Genji breaks the solid two minutes of silence. “You know he’s alive.”

Ana has been frowning down at Jesse, who still looks like he was hit over the head with a baseball bat. “It mentions royalties. Does he want money?”

Genji and Jesse snort simultaneously at that. “No, no,” Jesse says. “That’s just him bein’ a dick like always.” He pauses. “Like he used to be.” He looks up at Ana. “You don’t recall having gotten any e-mails that looked anything like this, with those initials?”

She shakes her head. “I can go back through my deleted e-mails, but I would remember. I almost never get the personal messages like this.”

“Shouldn’t it be _nom de plume_ , not _nom de guerre_?” Sombra asks thoughtfully.

“That would be him bein’ a dick again,” Jesse says with a roll of his eyes, but everyone sees the quickly hidden fond smile.

Sombra looks at him without her usual mischief. “What are you going to do?”

Jesse spreads helpless hands. “I have a piece of paper and an envelope that you could get at any office supply store. No return address. I have nothing.” He puts a hand over his face, pushing into his eyes with his fingers to block out the light before using it to press into his mouth and keep him from saying something stupid.

“Jesse.” Ana this time, drawing his eyes up to hers through sheer force of will. “I’ve never pushed you on this, but now we have a letter sent to our offices so now it’s our business. Who is this man? Who is GR?”

Jesse pauses a long moment before pulling his hand away from his face and sighing. “Gabriel. My former commander.”

 

\--

 _I’m visiting an old teammate, who settled in Pittsburgh of all places. It’s not a large city, nothing like LA, but it’s an unfamiliar one and so it’s a threat. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be able to shake my need to know where everyone is, to know where every exit is placed, to have my back to a wall. We drive out of the city to the northeast to visit the remains of the Kinzua Bridge. It was a wrought iron bridge built in the 1800s that at one point had the moniker that thousands of things seem to, that of the Eighth Wonder of the World. The pictures of it were impressive - a steel skeleton crossing a tree-filled valley and creek. A tornado ripped most of it down decades ago, and now only half the bridge still stands. They reinforced it, put in a glass panel at the end. We walked out, and that need to know where everything around me was faded. It was just us, trees, wind, and the broken steel bones still lying in the gorge below us after decades. Peace, almost._ \- Joel Morricone,  To Be a Confident Wreck , p 188

Six months later, and Jesse has tried to put the mysterious letter out of his mind. He did some research on his own - the postmark was from the post office closest to LAX, so functionally useless other than saying he must have passed through one of the busiest airports in the world at some point. (He refused to entertain the idea that he was local, that would just be too much. Even though Jesse knew he grew up in LA.) Jesse has steadfastly not allowed Ana or Genji give any information to Fareeha. He knows Genji would listen to him, but he’s not sure about Ana. She has a ruthlessly pragmatic streak that sometimes runs roughshod over her authors. He refuses to give her Gabriel’s last name, not trusting her.

Nothing came to anything in the end, so Jesse tries not to think about it much. He tells himself that he tried, but in truth he doesn’t really want to know. He spends a month on editing, four months travelling and writing new material that might be part of the new book or might be worthless, then back to LA for more editing. The book has been bouncing back and forth between him and Ana, and she’s given him the deadline of three months for any last things he wants to shoehorn in. Before that, though, they have The Convention.

Jesse gets dragged to the convention every year. It’s run by Overwatch Publications, who fought their way into changing the Big Five into the Big Six over the past few decades, and are now second in sales only to Penguin Random House. This makes them more than big enough to run their own convention without having to partner with another publisher. Half of it is editorial/publishing - the various divisions and imprints coming together to fight over authors and impress each other and anyone who’s thinking of jumping ship from another house. The other half is where Jesse is involved: the authors showing off their books and themselves to anyone who wants to buy a ticket.

They’re at LACC, the Los Angeles Convention Center. It’s a fairly quiet weekend, so the only gigs going on are OverCon and some conference on weapons technology that half of Jesse’s social circle is attending. Genji and Fareeha will be there, along with his old strike team members Foster and O’Reilly. He’s sure that he knows other people there too - many of the people he knew in his military time ended up in weapons tech or security or PDs or the like. It’s an odd clashing of Jesse’s worlds, past and present.

He’s been run ragged by Ana all day, and is now finally able to relax for an early dinner with Genji and Fareeha. They’re at some restaurant Jesse’s forgotten the name of already just down the street from the Center. There are too many people around, and Jesse finds himself twitchy and watching the street in between glances around him.

Genji shoves his beer over to Jesse. “Drink this. You’re making me tense just looking at you.”

Jesse pushes it back with a grimace. “Can’t. I have a signing right after this until eight thirty. Need to stay clear. I just…” he shakes out his shoulders. “I was in Argentina again ‘til just last week, lookin’ at the Cueva de las Manos, this cave with painted handprints that are twenty thousand years old. It was incredible. Then lots of wanderin’ the glacier and the mountains. Didn’t see another soul for weeks, livin’ off of caches. Not used to this many people.” He glares around him. “And maybe I’m just out of sorts from it all but I could swear to god I’m bein’ watched.”

Fareeha gestures at him and his monkey suit - vest and blazer and all - with the bone from a gnawed-on rib. “Maybe it’s just one of your insane fans again. Mother has told me about some of them. You’ll have some of my people as security during your signings.”

Jesse sighs. “They’re really not that bad. Just a little...delusional. I am perfectly capable of takin’ care of myself. I was in the army for longer than you were, kid.”

“Sure, ten years ago. And I’ve kept myself in the business while you wander around caves and glaciers. So let us do our job, yes? I read some of those letters, Jesse. They weren’t all playing around.”

“Speaking of letters…” Genji trails off at Jesse’s pointed glare, before changing tacks and segueing into, “I guess I only saw the nice ones.”

“Sombra picks out the dangerous lookin’ ones, sends me the rest. I get the assholes, but not the ones that want to string me up and leave me to the coyotes.”

“Why would they, at all? I mean, I read all the books. There’s nothing in there that’s particularly incendiary.”

Jesse makes a noncommittal gesture. “Most are from people that just hate I was in the army at all, don’t condone the violence or that I’m makin’ a profit from talkin’ about it after the fact.”

Fareeha cuts in. “He’s not mentioning the ones that want to kidnap him and marry him, or hunt down the guy he talks about and either kill him or marry him as well.” Jesse shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He will never get used to those fans, the ones that truly fit the original word ‘fanatic’. He’ll always be grateful to Sombra for filtering them out and sending them to Ana: in the early days he read them all himself.

“There’s always a spike in them around things like this, too,” Fareeha continues. “Because they see what you look like and want a piece.”

Genji looks him over, sizing him up with a careful eye. “No, I don’t see it,” he says finally, laughing as Jesse makes a face at him. Privately Jesse agrees, though he knows Genji is joking. He feels too old and battle-scarred to be attractive to most people nowadays, though those fans of his must see something he doesn’t.

Jesse checks his watch and sighs. “Well, time to be thrown to the wolves.” He tosses some money on the table, and Fareeha and Genji promise they’ll stop by the next day.

It’s two and a half hours later, and Jesse’s hand and face hurt. He’s signed hundreds of copies of his previous three books, plus whatever the line goers want him to sign. This included a woman’s arm, and he is somewhat afraid it might be turned into a tattoo. He’s smiled for pictures, enough that his cheeks hurt even though it’s toned down from his natural grin. If it wasn’t for Sombra to supply him with coffee and pithy commentary, he would have gone mad some time ago. Fareeha’s two guards are here, though they’ve been fairly innocuous. Right now they’re closing the end of the line, letting the last few people queue up. The end is in sight.

“You’re almost there, boss,” mutters Sombra beside him as Jesse smiles and greets the next visitor. “Just a few more college kids and yummy mummies, a couple of teenage girls, and...hel- _lo_ , daddy. I don’t care if he could be my father, I wanna climb this guy like a tree. If you don’t get me his number I’m quitting on the spot.”

“If you don’t put a lid on it, I’ll fire you myself. People can hear you,” Jesse says through gritted teeth as one girl leaves and another college-age young woman steps up. He looks up at her and gives a friendly smile. “What can I do for you, darlin’?”

The last half dozen or so people go by in a blur, and Jesse is nearly ready to keel over. He hands a signed book to the next-to-last person, and looks over to the depleted stack of books, reaching over to grab another. Pauses.

Jesse recognizes his scent before anything, faint but so familiar: salt and leather and the same goddamn aftershave. He looks up and locks eyes with Gabriel Reyes, and every thought he had so desperately been trying to gather flies out of his head. He looks about the same, a few more lines on his face, the hair under his hood longer than the buzz he’d had. Same scars, same neatly shaped goatee, same knife-edge cheekbones. Same eyes, that bourbon brown that you could drown in. Jesse can’t tear his eyes away enough to see focus on anything other than his face. He doesn’t have any memory of standing, but he is and they’re looking at each other across the table. Jesse has to bite on his tongue before there’s enough saliva to wet his mouth to talk.

“Gabe.”

“Jesse.” No change to his voice, the same even light baritone.

“What are you doing here?”

“Weapons tech convention.”

“Ah.” A long pause. “Got your letter.”

“Mmm.”

“Didn’t leave me a way to contact you.”

“Didn’t I, now.”

Jesse is tired of this stilted speech, which feels like the opening jabs of a fight. “Gabe -”

He’s interrupted by Ana’s voice bellowing his name, including a threat that she’ll skin him alive if he doesn’t show for the photographers. He turns his head without breaking eye contact with Gabe and calls back that he’ll be there in a minute.

“I have to go, but we should talk.” Jesse reaches down to the table, grabs the first object involving paper that he can find, which happens to be a copy of his third and most recent book. He scribbles his hotel room number and his phone number with the pen he’s been signing with on the inside, pushes it into Gabe’s hands. “I’m just a block over at the Ritz-Carlton, tonight and tomorrow night, after ten. If that doesn’t work, my phone number’s in there. Ball’s in your court, Gabe.”

Before he can make more of a fool of himself, Jesse turns and walks away, blindly going towards where he’d heard Ana’s voice. Every muscle is tensed, because if he lets himself relax he’s going to collapse on the floor. Sombra, bless her, guides him over to where Ana is waiting with a gaggle of photographers and the various people from Overwatch involved in the book that will be coming out. Apparently there are pictures taken, Jesse remembers none of it.

He comes back to reality sitting at a table, open water bottle in hand, Sombra rubbing a comforting hand over the back of his neck while Ana sinks down into the seat next to him.

“Want to tell me why you just took publicity photos looking like you’d just been hit upside the head with a dead fish? I have a business to run here, Jesse, specifically _your_ busi- ”

“I’m sorry, Ana,” Jesse interrupts her, after taking a drink of water. “I was a little shaken, won’t happen again.”

She looks at him critically. “You look like hell. What’s wrong?”

“I saw my ex. From the letter. Gabe.”

Her eye widens slightly, a dramatic show of emotion for her. “Really.” Her head turns back to the hall, as if she could still see him in the empty room. “Interesting. What did you do?”

“We talked for a few moments. Told him where I was staying, gave him my number. At least he knows how to contact me direct, now.”

Sombra snickers. “And he gave it to him by writing it in a copy of I Was Careful But Nothing Is Harmless, of all things.”

Ana cocks her head. “Isn’t that the one where at one point you describe in detail how you two -”

“I _fucking know_ , Ana. I have regrets.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, you’re the one who did it. Go to the hotel, Jesse. Sombra will pick you up at 7:30 for the panel at 8. You quite definitely need a good night’s sleep after all of this.” Even though he lives in LA, the publishers always covered for them to stay at a hotel during the convention. It was easier than fighting through hours of traffic each way, and it meant they could be scheduled both later and earlier for events.

Sombra pushes at Jesse until he gets up, and manages to get him pointed in the direction of the hotel, walking quickly to keep pace with his longer legs. “You have some time. Go in and take a shower, don’t worry about whether he’s going to show or not.”

“I’m not going to fuck him tonight, Sombra.”

“Which is a crying shame, and you should thank me later for putting some extra items in with your toiletries when I got your shit packed. Regardless, you’ve been working and sweating for twelve hours, and a shower will do you good.”

They’re quiet until they get to the hotel. In the elevator: “Sorry for saying I’d climb him like a tree. I didn’t know who he was.”

Jesse pats her shoulder. “Don’t worry. Happens to a lot of people that get a look at him.”

“It’s weird to put a face to a lack of name. I mean, you’re my boss so it’s not like I was actively fantasizing during any of the sex scenes -”

“Thanks so much.”

“ _De nada_. But now that I know who the other guy was? Damn. I’m amazed you didn’t write whole chapters just about those arms. Even through the leather jacket you could tell. And that ass -”

“You’re pure class, Sombra. And you are actively forbidden from ever thinking about those scenes now.”

“Too late. I bet you two were hot together.”

They exit the elevator, Jesse fumbling the key card out for his room first while Sombra continues down the hall to the room she’s sharing with another assistant. He opens the door, Sombra’s voice stopping him as he moves to enter.

“Jesse. If he does show just...when you were walking away, he looked like someone suckerpunched him. You’re not the only one freaking out about this.”

He smiles at her. She really is pretty great. “Thanks, Som. I’ll see you in the morning. Bring coffee.”

“Will do.”

He shuts the door behind him, checks his watch. 9 pm. If Gabe shows at all, which he has doubts about, it won’t be for another hour. He has some time.

 

\--

 _He does things when he thinks I’m asleep. Tracing patterns onto my chest or running his hands through my hair. Kissing words into my skin with featherlight touches of his lips and beard that he’d never say if he thought I was awake. Sometimes I wonder if he knows I’m aware, and it’s all just an elaborate fiction that lets him show emotion for once without risk. He equates me with weakness, I know. Not mine, but his. Something, someone that could be used against him, used to hurt him. I’m in the same damn organization as him and I understand it, but when it’s silent and dark and the only time he says he loves me is when he’s breathing it into my skin when he thinks I can’t hear...it hurts. God knows what he says when I actually am asleep._ \- Joel Morricone,  I Was Careful But Nothing Is Harmless , p 238

Jesse showers, telling himself he’s not scrubbing himself down any more than usual. He redresses in normal clothing, then proceeds to fidget for an hour and a half. Ten passes, then eleven, and Gabe doesn’t show. At eleven thirty Jesse gives up and dresses for bed. The room is dark with just the bedside lamp on, the covers pulled back. He’s just rinsing his mouth from brushing his teeth when there’s a knock at the door. Jesse doesn’t assume this is Gabe: he figures he’d get a call from the front desk if there’s someone waiting to see him.

Instead, there’s the man himself on the other side of the peephole. Jesse pulls open the door to see Gabe, standing awkwardly in the bright hallway.

“It’s late.”

“Sorry, we had a panel go long since we’re all staying local. I’m two floors down.”

“Mmm.”

Jesse leaves him dangling, lets Gabe take in his clothes obviously meant for sleep and the darkened room behind him. He feels like being a bit of an asshole right now.

“Do...do you want me to go? I know it’s late.”

The need for resolution wins out over the need to be a jerk, so Jesse steps aside and motions Gabe inside. He ended up in one of the nicest suites this time, an upgrade from when some bigwig cancelled. It weirds Jesse out to realize he’s a moneymaker for Overwatch Publishing, and it only really shows during times like this. He sits on the couch, waves Gabe over to the wet bar.

“There’s some booze left over from the welcome basket, not sure what all’s in there. Wine, I think.”

Gabe shakes his head, takes his leather jacket off and drapes it over a stool, sits in the armchair near Jesse. He’s wearing a hoodie, surprise surprise, though this one obviously doesn’t have their old emblems and is made of rather nicer material. He has on black slacks and quality shoes. It’s like an alternate reality version of the Gabe he knew. The hood goes back, finally, and his longer hair is revealed, nearly the length it was when Jesse first joined up. Jesse has to actively hold his hand down so as not to reach over to run his fingers through it. Some habits never change.

Jesse is aware of his thin pajama pants and washed-to-clinging-softness white t-shirt, hair messy from air drying after his shower. It’s like it always was: him exposed and Gabe in armor. He tries to forget all of that and crosses one leg over the other. “So. Pleasant surprise to see you’re alive. What’ve you been up to for the past ten years?”

Gabe doesn’t answer right away, looking around the suite. Jesse isn’t sure what he’s looking at, looking for - his things are neatly packed away into the suitcase on the stand in the corner, so it’s not his stuff that’s being scrutinized.

“Nicer than our room, that’s for sure.”

Jesse snorts in amusement. “Nicer than I usually have, too. Got bumped up when another author cancelled.”

Gabe looks at Jesse, and it’s like being pinned under a spotlight for a moment until Jesse remembers that he’s a grown man and millions of people buy his books. “You’re doing well, then.”

“Well enough. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

Now it’s Gabe’s turn to be pinned down under a stare. He looks Jesse in the face, sighs and looks away. “Stayed in with the organization for another four years. You know our group was gone, but they didn’t want to let any of us at the top go because they were afraid of...fuck knows, maybe that we’d defect or sell our intel to the highest bidder. I was moved sideways into the primary peacekeeping mission, partnered up with Jack. I took over international operations while he did domestic. Once they stopped making noises about needing to stay, I left. Took some time to visit family, get my head on straight. Now I’m in Internal Affairs with LAPD, focusing on Metro. Trying to crack down on the corruption and brutality.” He sits back, crossing his own legs. “Now you.”

Jesse doesn’t speak at first, turning things over in his mind. “I’m havin’ a hard time picturing you as IA. I mean, we were breakin’ laws left and right back in our day.”

Gabe shrugs. “I know. It took some time to reconcile. I’m still not...I don’t know. But back then, we were doing the right thing. And this is the same - making sure that the justice is doled out properly, that the bad guys, even when they’re in our own department, are brought to answer. There’s a practicality, a ruthlessness that most of the people in the group struggle with, but it’s what we did for years.” Gabe scratches through his beard, rests his chin on a hand. “Jesse.”

Jesse spreads his arms out helplessly. “What do you want to know? You said you read the books, those’re basically my diary. I travel. I write about it. I get paid for it. I compile stupid journal entries into books and they sell and I don’t know why.”

“How’d you get started?” He sounds genuinely curious.

“After I left I just...didn’t know what to do, where to go. You know I don’t have any family left. I had money from the severance pay, could speak four languages and get by in another half dozen, and could kill a man in ten ways using only a toothpick. I just had to get away for bit. Ended up in Guatemala, hikin’ in the mountains from town to town. Settled down in this one little village during a string of storms, doing odd jobs for food and shelter. Probably the best month of my life, to be honest. I was out gettin’ some wood when I found this British photographer who’d gotten himself lost trying to get back to the neighboring village. We took him in and got to talkin’, he read some of my blog entries, asked if I could write an article to accompany the photo essay he was doing and promised some money for it. Turns out it was for National Geographic, and that got people callin’ me up and seein’ if I could write more. Had a talent for it, apparently. That was pretty much it.”

“And the books?” Gabe’s voice is even to the point of being toneless.

Jesse shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “They weren’t supposed to be books. I kept a blog, updated it from my phone or whatever computer was available. Just rambling to myself about what I was doin’, things I saw, how it was different as a civilian rather than military personnel. No one was ever supposed to see it other than me. But I signed it with the same pen name that I wrote my articles with, and I guess someone found it one day and it got real popular out of nowhere. Ana found me, snapped me up, told me to just organize what I had into a book. I figured that it wouldn’t sell but I’d have a nice line for my resume, didn’t think much about it. Instead, well.”

“Instead you wrote about me. For millions of people to read.”

There it is. The shoe Jesse’s been waiting for six months - or maybe ten years - to drop.

“I didn’t mean to,” Jesse says quietly. “It was just for me, trying to put the memories down before I forgot. They weren’t- it wasn’t- it was just for me.”

“You know how private a person I am, Jesse.” The anger is now clear in Gabe’s voice. “We made sure for years - _years_ \- that no one knew about us other than the team. And then you just write it for everyone to see?”

“No one knows it’s you! I never gave a single identifying piece of information about you other than gender. If you’ve read the books then you know how I keep information vague about us and the team. Genji knows, obviously, but I don’t think even Foster or O'Reilly do, because I’m pretty sure they’ve never read them. No one knows, Gabe. No one. I’ve gotten dozens of letters a month for years and years claiming they know who you are, and none of them ever do.”

“Jack does.”

“What?”

“He’s how I found out in the first place. No offense, but travelogues have never been my reading choice.” Jesse knows that, had counted on it. Gabe continues, “Jack’s still in the organization, gave me a call awhile back when your last book came out. He was stuck babysitting a bunch of scientists at some remote outpost in the Antarctic, and they had to be so careful with power that the only things to do were read and play cards. He borrowed some books from one of the researchers, ended up reading yours. Recognized us from context clues, thought I should know.” He pauses. “Why are you laughing?”

Jesse’s head is tipped back against the couch, quietly chuckling to himself. “I know exactly who the researcher was who gave Jack the books. She’s a friend, staying on the floor above us in fact. God, she’d get a kick of out this, that’s for sure.”

“It’s not funny. I just don’t understand why any of it is in there at all. You said your editor Ana was the one to help your turn it all into a book. I don’t get why you wouldn’t just take it all out, you don’t need information about me in there -”

“Because there’s no me back then without you!” Jesse’s sharp voice echoes on the suddenly silent air, all traces of laughter gone. “You were my other half, Gabe. I couldn’t just not talk about you, there would be nothing left. You were entwined with every aspect of my life for most of a decade. I had no memory that you weren’t a part of, and then overnight it was all gone. The writings that became those books were as much therapy as anythin’ else, learning how to be a functioning adult without you there. So don’t tell me I don’t get to write about you, because it means I wouldn’t be able to write about myself.”

Gabe’s eyes are wide, but Jesse doesn’t see them as he stares at the clenched hands on his lap.

“I should...I should go. I’ll. I’ll be in touch at some point.” Jesse’s eyes are locked on his hands but he listens to him get up, hears the door shut.

It’s not until he hears the grinding noise of the elevator descending that he lets the tears fall.

 

\--

 _Hello, all. And by all I mean just me, I don’t really expect anyone else to see this. If you somehow stumble across it, though: welcome. The name’s Joel Morricone, I’m thirty years old and just got out of a twelve year stint in the army and special units, and now I’m loosed on the world as a civilian and don’t rightly know what to do with myself. I’m currently on a train to Guatemala, because it’s somewhere I’ve never been and I can speak the language. My momma told me she had some Mayan ancestry, so I think my first step is going to be to see Tikal and some of the ruins. I recently read this book,_ _Jungle of Stone_ _by William Carlsen, about these two men who explored the remnants of ancient Mayan civilizations in the 1800s. An interesting book, though one you take with a grain of salt. I think I just want to take some time and see everything for myself._ \- Joel Morricone, first blog post, uncollected in book format

When Sombra comes knocking at 7:30 the next morning, Jesse is ready. He didn’t sleep much the night before.

“I was worried that I might be interrupting some morning delight there,” she says with a knowing look as she hands over his coffee.

“No worries about that. We talked for a bit and he left. I doubt we’ll see each other again anytime soon.” Jesse has been telling himself all night that it didn’t matter, that he got his closure, but he can’t believe even himself.

“Well, you’ll have a full day of events to take your mind off of it,” Sombra offers. This is true. Virtually every moment of today is dedicated to presenting himself as the perfect author, a day full of handshakes and smiles fixed on his face. It’s exhausting, having to be ‘on’ all day.

Late that evening, Jesse sits at the same restaurant as the night before having dinner with Fareeha and Genji. The two security contractors are arguing quietly over whether moving from one type of rubber bullet to another would be cost effective, while Jesse absently stirs his thankfully alcoholic drink with a straw. All he has left is a quick meeting with Ana and then he’s done.

“Genji, Jesse, look who I found!” It’s Ben O'Reilly, one of their former team members. He’s dragging over a grumpy-looking Gabe, who is dressed in a fitted black suit that is unfairly flattering. Gabe and Genji share a handshake-hug hybrid, a genuine smile tugging at the corners of Gabe’s mouth. They’d all been close as a team, and with the apparent exception of Jesse and Gabe, affection has persisted over the years.

They make room at the table for O'Reilly and Gabe, and both Genji and Jesse are shocked when Gabe hugs Fareeha with familiarity and another near-smile. “We occasionally get contracted out to LAPD when they need help, and it’s a small professional community,” she says with a shrug. Genji and Jesse exchange looks, and let the subject be.

Gabe, Genji, and O'Reilly catch up, Gabe imparting much of the same information he told Jesse the night before. Jesse stays fairly quiet. It’s not all from awkwardness, he genuinely is exhausted from the past two days. Fareeha shoots him occasional questioning looks, but doesn’t ask. Eventually O'Reilly begs off, his cheerful freckled face dimmed by tiredness. Gabe follows soon after, citing an early panel his has to attend the next day. He gives nods to them all, eyes lingering on Jesse before leaving.

Once he’s sure Gabe’s gone, Jesse lets his head thud down onto the table. Genji pats his shoulder comfortingly with his flesh hand as Fareeha looks suspicious.

“I feel like I was missing something, during that whole conversation,” she finally says, when it’s been a full minute and Jesse still hasn’t moved his head.

“You know the guy that Jesse writes about in his books? That was him,” Genji says.

“O'Reilly? Really? Wait- fuck, you mean _Reyes_? Are you serious?” Fareeha sounds both delighted and outraged.

Jesse separates his forehead from the table with a sticky sound, rubbing away the drinks residue with a hand. “Yep. Welcome to my shame. Yesterday was the first time in a decade we’ve seen each other.”

“Damn, if I’d known you were looking for him I’d have told you where he was years ago. God, I can’t believe it. I read all your books and...well, I’m not sure who I was picturing but it wasn’t Gabriel goddamn Reyes.” Fareeha looks Jesse over frankly. “Nice work, McCree.”

He glares at her. “I have a meeting with your mother after this. Buy me a drink.” Fareeha laughs, but leaves and comes back with something that has entirely too many colors and an umbrella. His fault for not specifying which drink he wanted, apparently.

They all separate, Genji and Fareeha back to their hotel and Jesse to the lobby of the Ritz to see Ana. It’s not a long meeting, happily, mostly just a rehash of what went on the past few days. Jesse just has one last panel on new media vs old media at ten the next day, then he’s home free. Ana fixes him with a calculating look.

“I don’t suppose your...acquaintance would be willing to -”

“No. I don’t care what it is. No interviews, no forewords, no quotes, nothing. He’s unhappy about bein’ part of it at all, and no one knows who he is and I want to keep it that way. Now that you know, all the mail claiming to be him can go in the trash and we can forget about it all.”

Ana raises her hands in acquiescence. “Fine, fine. I just think it would be an excellent marketing opportunity.”

“Thanks, but no thanks on his behalf. If that’s all…?” Ana nods and waves him off, and Jesse stumbles up to his room.

Jesse takes a long shower, luxuriating in the wonderful water pressure. He can’t quite shut off his brain, though, and he keeps remembering how the jacket fit over Gabe’s broad shoulders, the slight smile on his face when he hugged Genji, the way the pants pulled tight as he sat down. He looks down, and isn’t surprised to see his body interested. He tries to will the arousal away, getting out and roughly drying off.

In bed with a book, things aren’t much better. Jesse finally sighs and sets the book aside, giving in to the inevitable. Recalling Sombra’s comment from the day before, he goes to his toiletry bag and roots around, eventually pulling out a brand new bottle of lube. He realizes that it’s weird for his assistant to know his personal item preferences, but she’s worked for him for long enough that there are few secrets about the minutiae of his life that he has from her.

He settles back in bed, pulling his pants down to his knees. He teases his erection with one hand, stroking himself harder as he slips a slick finger behind him. It’s been awhile since he’s taken the time to do this, but it’s been a long day and he could use some relaxation. He has a second finger in and is just starting to twist it around when there’s a knock at the door. Jesse’s eyes fly open, and he pulls both hands away from his body, a thrill of anxiety running through him. Erection completely lost, he pulls up his pants and wipes his fingers on the edge of the bedspread, rubbing in some hand sanitizer on his way to the door. The only people he could think of that would bother him at this time of night would be Sombra and Ana, and neither would be good news. Maybe the panel tomorrow is cancelled?

Jesse opens the door, and is just about bowled over by Gabe shouldering his way into the room. “Well just come on in, Gabe,” Jesse says, sarcasm dripping from every word as he shuts the door and turns around. “Don’t wait for an invitation or anything, or think that I might have been in bed.”

“It wasn’t the sex,” Gabe states abruptly, standing near the coffee table.

“What?” Jesse asks in confusion. He’s distracted by the soft light of the bedside lamp illuminating Gabe’s profile, but he’s pretty sure that they weren’t in the middle of a conversation the way Gabe seems to think they are.

“What’s upsetting about all of it. It’s not you writing about us having sex, I don’t care about that. It’s...it’s everything else.”

“Else? The...what, the writing about ops? I always made sure to obscure -”

“No, damnit.” Gabe strides over to the wet bar, picks up a book out of the pile there. Checks the cover to see that it’s  I Was Careful But Nothing Is Harmless before flipping to a specific page. _He has page numbers memorized?_ is all Jesse can think at the moment.

“ _Under the roar of the helicopter blades I’m holding his chest together with pressure and hope_ ,” Gabe reads. Jesse closes his eyes momentarily, knows what’s coming. “ _The shocking white of bone peeks out between the cut edges of dark skin and red, red muscle, and he passed out from blood loss a while ago. There’s a tube running from my artery to his vein, and G is squeezing my arm to keep the flow going. We don’t use words to say how we feel, but I say don’t leave me with every press of my hands, I say I love you with every drop that flows from me to him. Perhaps if I get enough of myself in him it will be enough to make him say it back, enough to make him stay._ ”

Gabe snaps the book closed, tosses it on a chair. “That. That’s what is so...god, Jesse. You lay yourself bare time and time again, you fucking flay yourself open for the public, and none of it was anything you could ever say to me. You never...you never said any of it to me.”

“Because I didn’t think you could handle it.” Jesse wants to scream, but it comes out softly. “I knew, starting even in those early years, you could never fucking say anything to my face, you’d wait until you thought I was asleep or unconscious. And years went by and we were in the same bed every night that we could get away with it, but you never said anything about how you cared, if you cared, if you felt anything for me. Our _everything_ was kept locked away, and I knew that if I said word one you’d shut it all down. And I wanted even the little we had, so no, Gabe. I didn’t say anything. But neither did you.”

Gabe is pacing slowly, moving closer each turn. “You know the pressure we were under, you know all I wanted was to keep you safe.”

“That makes sense for us not parading around headquarters with tongues in each others’ mouths. I _got_ that, Gabe. I always did. What I never got is why you couldn’t talk when it was just the two of us alone.”

“I was afraid, all right?” Gabe’s jacket is pulled tight as his arms are crossed, standing just a few feet from Jesse as he stares out the window at the lights of LA. “If we didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t real. If it wasn’t real then you were just another guy under my command. I couldn’t - I couldn’t send out someone I said I loved into a hail of bullets every other day, Jesse. I just couldn’t.”

“Ten years, Gabriel. Nearly ten years together and you still were telling yourself that.” Jesse steps closer, near enough to feel the heat from Gabe’s body in the chill of the over-air conditioned room.

“You’ve always been my weak spot. Didn’t want to give you up.”

Jesse reaches over, turns Gabe’s face towards him with the lightest of touches that could be shaken off with no effort. It’s a few seconds before Gabe raises his eyes to meet Jesse’s.

“There’s no hail of bullets now, Gabe,” Jesse says gently. “Hasn’t been for some time.”

Jesse stumbles backwards a step as Gabe wraps his arms around his waist. Jesse curls one arm around Gabe’s shoulder, the other holds the base of his skull as Gabe pushes his face into the crook of Jesse’s neck where the stretched-out collar of his sleep shirt has shifted aside. They stand there unmoving, Gabe breathing into Jesse’s skin as Jesse begins to slowly stroke a hand up and down the back of Gabe’s head. Jesse is smaller now, leaner than when he was in the army. It takes dedication to keep up the musculature he had back then, and now his exercise is mostly running and hiking. It’s so apparent now, with Gabe’s greater bulk pressed up to him.

After several long minutes Gabe pulls back, just enough to press his forehead to Jesse’s. Jesse holds Gabe’s face in his hands, carefully. When he had fantasized about the two of them reuniting, it was always...fast. Brutal, or passionate perhaps, but never anything like this quietness that Gabe seems to need right now. They breathe into each others’ faces, and Jesse barely notices when it turns into a kiss. It’s not gentle or delicate, they don’t do that. But it’s slow. Languid. Something they rarely had the time for before.

They move back towards the bed, and Jesse sits on the edge while Gabe takes his jacket off. Jesse only has a shirt and pajama pants to lose, so he strips them off and lies back on the bed, head propped up on an arm to watch Gabe. Gabe undressing has always been one of his favorite things. He’s efficient, but always careful with whatever he’s wearing, body and clothing combining into an unconsciously erotic striptease for those who like order. As he’s about to pull down his underwear - apparently he hasn’t changed styles in the past decade, same tight black boxer-briefs as ever - Gabe notices Jesse’s appreciative gaze.

He rolls his eyes. “Forgot how you always liked that.”

“I am a man who appreciates good scenery.”

The underwear gets folded and put on top of everything else, and Gabe swings a leg over to straddle Jesse on the bed. He sits back on Jesse’s thighs for a moment, looking down at the man before him that he once knew so well. He traces a finger over new scars - Jesse might have been out of the military, but he still wasn’t in the safest of professions.

“Slash from a crampon.”

“Piece of shale gave way, fell into a gorge.”

“Got mugged in Belgrade. Other guy looked worse.”

Jesse reaches up, pulls Gabe down to him. The languidness is gone, replaced by a quiet tension that thrums on the air. Their mouths meet, lips warm in the cool of the room. They kiss for long minutes, relearning each others’ mouths, before Gabe breaks away to move to Jesse’s neck. He sucks a mark into his collarbone, peppering kisses and nips down Jesse’s chest. Gabe rests his head on Jesse’s stomach, still firm after all these years, and traces his ribs with long fingers. Jesse shifts his hips, impatient, and he sees Gabe smirk as he moves downwards.

Pushing Jesse’s legs apart to make room, Gabe settles himself. He mouths around the base of his cock, tongue tracing the network of veins, before taking him into his mouth. Jesse lets out a slow, shuddering breath, eyes closing. For all the issues they might have had, compatibility in the bedroom was never one of them. Gabe slides his fingers down and back, and makes a noise of surprise to find Jesse already wet.

“Wasn’t for you, didn’t expect you to come,” Jesse says with a roughness to his voice as he reaches over to grab the lube and drop it next to Gabe. “Was thinking about you, though.”

“As well you should,” is the reply, as Gabe slicks his fingers and easily pushes in two, bringing a gasp from Jesse and a twitch from his cock. His fingers move like they’re part of a targeting system, and Jesse groans when they hit his prostate. Two becomes three as Gabe works Jesse up, and soon he’s coming down Gabe’s throat with a bitten off moan. Gabe licks slowly up along the vein on the side until Jesse twitches and pushes his head away, oversensitive. Gabe keeps pumping his fingers slowly in and out.

“You need another?”

“Yeah. Been awhile.” Jesse hasn’t stayed celibate over the past decade, but hasn’t bottomed since his last time with Gabe. He knows he’ll need the looseness from the orgasm and the extra prep to handle him.

Gabe slowly kisses up and across and down Jesse’s lower body, leaving small marks on inner thighs and hipbones that are sharper than they used to be. He pauses at the edge of his public hair, smiling as he finds a particular place with a few small broken veins, bluish-purple under the surface of tan skin. He bends his mouth down, sucking in a mark that was pretty much never allowed to heal during their time together, not stopping until he knows it will bruise. Jesse is back to half-hardness and is continuing to thicken, hands threaded into Gabe’s hair.

“You ready?”

“Yeah. Come on.”

“Like this, or on your stomach?”

“I want to see your face.”

Gabe grabs a pillow off of the pile next to them, Jesse already lifting his hips to it can be slid underneath them. Gabe sits back on his heels, slicks up his cock, spends a moment looking at Jesse spread out for him as he strokes himself. Neither mention condoms. They rarely used them before and though it’s not the smartest decision, they trust each other and the last thing they need is one more barrier between them.

Resting his weight on one arm, Gabe uses his other hand to position himself. He pushes in, pausing at Jesse’s quiet noise. He keeps going at Jesse’s nod, both exhaling when their hipbones rest against each other. Gabe starts a slow rhythm, using one hand to tilt Jesse’s hips this way and that until he gets a soft gasp. He speeds up then, stroking again and again over that spot that makes sparks fly behind Jesse’s closed eyelids. They’re both fairly quiet, a habit borne from thousands of nights together with the rest of the team on the other side of a tent wall or across a fire. Gabe snaps his hips harder, trying to get as much sound out of Jesse as he can.

Jesse tries to keep himself from moving around too much, but it’s hard. Gabe inside him feels like a puzzle piece slotting in when he didn’t know anything was missing. He reaches up to pull Gabe down towards him, and the thrusts change into a smooth roll of hips as they kiss each other messily. It’s all sloppy with too much tongue and absolutely perfect. Jesse wraps a hand around himself when he feels himself getting close. With a few more thrusts and a twist of his wrist he’s throwing his head back and arching his spine, his eloquence as a writer abandoning him in favor of choked off breaths and spasming fingers. Gabe follows less than a minute later, grunting as his balls contract and he empties himself into Jesse. He keeps moving through the slickness until he starts to soften.

He lets himself collapse down onto his elbows, then onto Jesse’s chest. Jesse reaches down to tangle his hands in Gabe’s hair, strong fingers rubbing the tension out of the scalp beneath. After a few minutes Jesse can feel Gabe’s breathing start to slow and even out into the rhythms of sleep, so he jostles him with a knee.

“Come on. You’re not staying in there all night.”

Gabe separates himself from Jesse’s chest with a frankly disgusting sensation, and pulls out of him to one even worse. Jesse shifts, half in pleasure and half in discomfort. He’d forgotten just how much Gabe always came, and now it’s dripping out of him onto the bed. It’s not bad, it just...is what it is. Another part of Gabe - like the exact sound he made when he came or how he nuzzled into Jesse’s stomach at the hands in his hair - that he’d almost forgotten. That’s why he’d written about their relationship in his blog: he was sure they’d never be together again, so he would try and document some of it, the important parts. He never could have written about things like this though, so they slipped through the cracks.

Jesse’s train of thought is interrupted by a warm washcloth wiping over him. He lazily lifts a leg so Gabe can get under him, and when he lowers it he catches Gabe’s eye.

“Stay.”

Gabe pauses, then nods. He goes over to his clothing, fishes his phone out of his pants and types a quick message. “Just letting them know I won’t be back for the evening.” He flicks the light out.

“You staying with LAPD folks?”

A creak of bedsprings, then Gabe’s arms are wrapping around Jesse, warm breath on his neck. “A group of us. Me, some SWAT, a couple guys from Dignitary Protection. We’re thinking of switching suppliers for some things.”

“And here I thought you were all here just to get some signed books from me.”

A long pause, notable because Jesse feels the breath on his neck stop. “It’s why I asked to come.”

Jesse lets his eyes close, feels a satisfied smile wrap around his face where Gabe can’t see, and falls asleep easily.

 

\--

 _I walked a goodly portion of the Appian Way recently, for an article that I don’t quite have hashed out completely but I know will be titled “All Roads Lead to Rome.” That’s one of the roads where the saying comes from, of course. I veered off to take a detour to Pompeii. I know a guy who knows a girl who knows a guy who got me into the sections of the city that they don’t allow tourists into. I won’t name names, but T - you’re my man. He showed me the casts they took of the bodies that were buried in ash, and how they’re now CT scanning them to get more details. There are these two figures together - they were originally called the ‘Two Maidens’, but now they’re pretty sure they’re young men, both in their late teens or early twenties. I think back to myself at that age, how I would have reacted if my world exploded into fire and ash. The last action of these men - these boys - were to reach for each other, a final moment of human contact before obliteration. What would I have done? -_ Joel Morricone, unpublished fourth manuscript

Jesse awakens to soft light on his eyelids and a wet mouth on the back of his neck. He squirms comfortably, and it’s not until he opens his eyes that he remembers where and when he is. The mouth doesn’t stop, working its way from the back around to his collarbone, Gabe’s neck curving as he pulls Jesse’s shoulder over. Jesse tugs Gabe up, kissing him deeply even though both their mouths are vile from sleep. Reaching over, he hauls Gabe’s leg until it’s across his thighs.

Gabe laughs somewhere deep in his throat and sits up slowly, centering himself on Jesse’s thighs, a position consciously similar to how he started the night before. This time he rubs his morning hardness against Jesse’s, a slow thrust of too much friction that makes them both catch their breath. Jesse’s breath stays caught as he looks at Gabe, gorgeous in the early morning light peeking out from around the heavy curtains and lighting his sculpted body up like a painting.

They’re both devoting all their attention to each other so neither one notices the door open on silent hinges.

“Jesse, you’re due at the panel in an hourroookay, hello, tattooed naked man.”

Craning his neck around Gabe’s bulk, Jesse sees Sombra shielding her eyes. “I know you’re peeking. Get out, I’ll meet you in the lobby in a bit.”

“Okay, just remember that we need to leave in half an hour, so…”

“ _Out,_ Sombra.”

The door closes, and both men look at each other blankly before laughing. “Oh god, I don’t pay that woman enough.”

Gabe reaches over to the nightstand and squirts some lube into his hand before wrapping his broad fingers around both of them. “Let’s make the best of the time we’ve got, then.”

They both come embarrassingly fast for being middle aged men, but the afterglow with Gabe curled forward to tuck his head under Jesse’s chin is sweet. Jesse pushes Gabe to the side to get a cloth to wipe themselves down. As he comes back to the bed, he takes a moment to look before sitting down.

“So this is what she meant by tattooed.” Jesse traces a gentle hand over the inked guns that are under Gabe’s shoulderblades, muzzles tilted up so any bullets fired would hit the base of his skull. Obviously years old at this point, but new to Jesse. He raises an eyebrow when he looks closely, realizes what they are.

“Mmm.” It’s not an answer, but it’s the best Jesse’s going to get right now. He bends to drop a kiss in the center of Gabe’s back.

“I gotta shower and get presentable. Be right out.”

When Jesse exits the shower all of seven minutes later, Gabe is gone.

The panel goes well, and afterwards Jesse is picking at an overpriced lunch with Sombra and Genji at the table with him.

“Why are you so glum? It looked like you were having a _very_ good morning.” Sombra grabs the chip that Jesse tosses at her and eats it.

“Did you…” Genji takes a look at Jesse’s face. “You did. Well, that was inevitable.”

“Don’t worry. I got out of the shower to find him gone. I...it didn’t feel like goodbye at the time, but I think it was.”

“Well I just wish I’d shown up ten minutes later. All that sweaty skin and tattoos…”

“Tattoos?” Genji frowns. The team had all seen each other in every state of undress, and knew what body modifications everyone had. “Of what?”

“Guns, on his back. Nicely done too, I wonder if he got them done local, I’d like the name of the artist.”

Genji ignores Sombra’s rambling. “What were they, the Hellfire shotguns?”

“One of them was.”

“What was the other?” At Jesse’s silence, Genji lets out a bark of laughter. “It was Peacekeeper, wasn’t it. He got fucking Peacekeeper tattooed on him for the rest of his life. Jesus, Jesse.”

“What’s Peacekeeper?” Sombra asks, interested look on her face.

“The second most important thing in Jesse’s life after Gabe back then. It’s better than getting his name tattooed - Jesse had to use a hundred fake names for missions but he never changed his goddamn gun.”

“Hmm.” Sombra chews on her pickle meditatively. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who’d fuck and run as a goodbye.”

Jesse covers his face with his hands. “I need new friends.”

The conventions end, they all go back home.

Jesse doesn’t hear anything from Gabe.

He goes to Lapland for a month, uses broken Swedish to speak with the Finns who translate for the Sami he meets. He helps herd reindeer, knows that he’s more hindrance than assistance but he helps watch the children when the adults are busy. It’s calming.

Jesse returns to Ana sniping about not needing new material for the book, he needs to edit what he has. He brushes her off, turns in an article on the Ijahis Idja music festival, and ignores the manuscript.

He thought he knew where the book was going, but everything is different now.

 

\--

 _When you travel a lot, you inevitably start thinking about what ‘home’ means. Is it the place you’ve spent the most time? I bounced around Arizona in childhood, never settling. My two years in the army and then ten in the unit we were always on the move, though I always did have quarters at HQ. Since then I’ve been based in LA, but I’m travelling half to three-quarters of the year. I’m not at my apartment enough to have a pet, or even plants. I’ve spent more time camped out next to active volcanoes than I have on some leases. So maybe home isn’t a place. Maybe it’s people. That one’s easy, at least._ \- Joel Morricone, unpublished fourth manuscript

Fareeha gets married in the spring. Jesse finds that unexpected, would think that she would have a fall wedding, the warm tones in her skin and eyes reflected in the autumn leaves and brisk weather. That lasts until he meets her fiance, Angela. Angela is a creature of spring, of growth, a doctor who supports everyone in her quiet, firm way. They make sense together, Fareeha’s brashness against Angela’s supple strength.

They all see Ana lose it a bit for the first time, her usual unshakable composure rattled in the face of her only daughter’s marriage. Everything works out in the end, and the whole department takes the weekend off to go up to Vancouver for the ceremony.

Jesse takes Sombra as his date even though she was invited already so he’d have a guarantee of someone to murmur inappropriate comments with at the table. Genji comes, of course, with Lúcio as his plus one - they’ve become serious over the past few months. The ceremony itself is beautiful, and though both Jesse and Sombra claim to be tear-free, they blink away some coincidental wetness when the happy couple kisses..

The reception is held in the main room of the lodge/hotel that they’re all staying at. It’s rustic in a genteel way, carefully manicured paths winding around cultivated forest. Fareeha and Angela swirl around the hardwood floor in their first dance, taking curtsies at the end before the floor fills with people.

Jesse is whirling Ana around the dancefloor, coming to a breathless laughing stop when the song they’re dancing to ends. A hand rests gently on Jesse’s shoulder. He took off his jacket awhile ago and the hand feels warm enough to burn through his shirt.

“Mind if I cut in?”

Ana grins and makes herself scarce, leaving Jesse to deal with Gabe. He should be surprised to see him here, but somehow after seeing him hug Fareeha a month ago he’s not. He lets Gabe wrap an arm around his waist and take his right hand, leading him around to the slow song the band is playing. He’s sure Gabe can feel the tension in his waist, see the unhappy set of his mouth.

“You’re angry.”

“I was in the shower for less than ten minutes and you disappeared without a word.”

“I missed the panel I was supposed to moderate that morning.”

“So you couldn’t spare thirty seconds to tell me you were leaving. Or leave a note. Or call afterwards” Jesse huffs out something like a chuckle, surprising even himself at the bitterness in it. “But why would you start using your words now.”

Jesse drops Gabe’s hand as soon as they get close to the edge of the floor, pushes open a door at the side of the room and goes outside. He hears Gabe behind him, and ignores him. He follows one of the manicured paths in the darkness until it leads to a softly-lit stone bench. He sits, digging in a back pocket for his cigar case. Jesse pulls out one of his cigarillos that he told Ana he stopped smoking years ago and lights up as Gabe sits next to him.

They sit in the small pool of light, the noises of spring peepers and insects increasing as the surrounding wildlife gets used to their presence. Jesse silently holds the cigar out and Gabe accepts it, taking a long drag and sending the smoke up to the stars as he hands it back to Jesse. They pass the cigar back and forth, and Jesse doesn’t realize he’s shivering in the cool night air until Gabe drapes his suit jacket over his shoulders. It’s too large and warm, smelling of Gabe.

“Thanks.”

They’re quiet for a few more minutes, until Gabe stubbs the butt out against the bottom of his shoe and tosses it into a nearby trash can.

“Can we talk about it?”

“Been waitin’ for two decades.”

“...I deserve that.” Gabe goes quiet after that, and Jesse bites his lip, telling himself to give the man time to talk.

“I was in therapy for awhile.” Huh. Unexpected. “I’m sure that’s a surprise to you, but even I can admit when I might need an outsider’s perspective. Turns out that being under life-or-death stress levels for a couple of decades might not be good for your mental health. I won’t bore you with the details, but one thing that stuck out was that I apparently get ‘overprotective’,” finger quotes are flattering on no one, but particularly not on a scarred ex-soldier, “and this has ‘kept me from reaching the full potential of my relationships’.” It’s clear that Gabe is mockingly imitating someone.

Gabe sighs, leans back on his hands. “That woman can be an ass an a half, but she doesn’t let me blow her off. And she’s right, an unfortunate amount of the time. She had a field day with you, by the by. Was the one that made me write the letter.” He looks at Jesse, who can see it out of the corner of his eye but is looking out into the dark forest himself. “I...I don’t know how I feel now. Who we are now, what we are now. We’ve spent as much time apart as we did together. But I did love you back then, Jesse. I did. And now that we’re in the same city…” He blows out a shuddering breath. “Maybe we could be something again. Or for the first time.”

Jesse sits, considers. “This doesn’t...fix everything. And it’s not like I’m not to blame for some things. But maybe you can give me a call, we could try a date or two.”

A rumbling laugh from next to him. “A decade of fucking in a hundred different countries, and now we’ll have our first date.”

Jesse smiles, shrugs awkwardly. “We never were a traditional couple.” He stands, holds a hand out to Gabe and pulls him up. They walk back to the reception, which is starting to wind down. Jesse walks over to where he and Sombra were sitting, grabs his jacket and lets Gabe pull his own off of Jesse’s shoulders. They walk to the foot of the stairs, and Jesse stops and turns.

“We’re going to go up to our rooms alone, and we’re going to stay there alone. Okay? We’ve never had problems in...that area, to the point where I think it might mess up whatever thing we’re working towards. So this is goodnight.”

Gabe has a crooked smile on his face. “You’re serious.”

Jesse nods. He can’t explain it but he’s sure that if they have sex now, it’ll just be sliding backwards into using their bodies instead of their words. If they’re going to do this, then they’ll damn well do it right.

Brushing back Jesse’s hair, Gabe cups the side of his face.

“We’re in public,” Jesse says quietly.

“So we are.” Gabe leans forward, kisses Jesse slow and deep and sweet. When he comes up for air, blinking, Jesse has a hand clenched in Gabe’s shirt and can’t remember a single reason why he should keep Gabe out of his bed. Gabe gives him another short kiss, then walks past him to go upstairs, hand trailing away from Jesse’s face at the last minute.

“Well, that’s progress, I suppose.” Genji is in front of him, with an arm slung around Lúcio’s shoulders. Jesse wants to respond, but his brain isn’t quite online.

“How? I thought they were together for years and years,” asks Lúcio.

“Yeah, but I can count on exactly one finger the number of times I’ve seen them kiss, and it was right now. It’s like they heard the word ‘discretion’ and took it as a challenge.”

Jesse glares at Genji, but he’s not wrong. “We’re...going to try things out. Slowly.”

Genji gives him a soft, genuine smile as he and Lúcio head up the stairs. “I’m rooting for you. A lot of people are, I think you’ll find.”

\--

Four days later, Jesse is in his office stabbing away at his keyboard. They’re in the final editing stage of the manuscript, and he can’t wait to see the back of the damn thing.

At the sound of a phone ringing, he absently picks up his desk phone assuming it’s Sombra, but the ringing doesn’t stop. He finds his cellphone under a stack of papers, with a number he doesn’t recognize on the screen. He frowns as he answers, assuming a telemarketer.

“Hello?” A pause.  “...Hi, Gabe.”

As the voice on the other end speaks, he finds his shoulders relaxing out of the tense state they’d been in all day. When Sombra pokes her head in an hour later to see if he wants coffee, she sees Jesse looking happier than she can recall seeing him in months as he talks into the phone, and quietly backs out of the room before he notices.

When he finally hangs up, Jesse has a new idea for how to order some of the sections in the manuscript, and plans for dinner the next night.

 

\--

 

You Were a Kindness When I Was a Stranger 

 

Joel Morricone

 

Overwatch Publications

Los Angeles - New York - London

 

Dedication:

_For GR_

_No matter where, you were - and are - home for me_

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading friendos


End file.
